


All I Want for Christmas (Is an Awkward Family Outing)

by AuroraWest



Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Comedy, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Gen, Holidays, M/M, POV Loki (Marvel), Romance, holiday bitchiness, ugly christmas displays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28330704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraWest/pseuds/AuroraWest
Summary: Loki takes the family on a holiday lights tour in the New York City metro. No, it doesn't sound like him. Yes, he regrets it.
Relationships: Jane Foster & Loki, Jane Foster & Stephen Strange, Jane Foster/Thor, Loki & Thor (Marvel), Loki & Wong (Marvel), Loki/Stephen Strange, Stephen Strange & Thor
Comments: 18
Kudos: 47





	All I Want for Christmas (Is an Awkward Family Outing)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy holidays everyone!
> 
> Thanks to [mareebird](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mareebird/pseuds/mareebird) as always for her wonderful beta work.

It was Wong who introduced the concept of a ‘grinch’ to Loki.

Mid-December in New York was all about Christmas. Christmas everything. Evergreen garlands on railings, wreaths on every door, the buildings lit red and green. Christmas sales at every store, advertisements promulgating 12 Days of Deals. The tree at Rockefeller Center. And tourists. Tourists everywhere.

Not at the Sanctum though. The Sanctum was Christmas free. Well, mostly. Loki was drifting around it, bored, while Stephen meditated, and was drawn into the den by the sound of music. Wong was sitting on the sofa, remote in hand, staring at some sort of colorful, animated program. There was a lime green creature on the screen forcing a dog to power a sewing machine while he crafted a Santa Claus costume. Wong was humming along with the music—something about greasy banana peels and brains made of spiders.

Loki’s brow furrowed. “What is this?” he asked.

Looking over his shoulder, Wong said, “‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas.’”

That told him nothing, but this tended to happen frequently with Wong. The adage, ‘ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer’ had been quoted to him more than once. It went without saying that he didn’t appreciate this. “This is about Christmas?” Loki asked.

“It’s a classic,” Wong said, as though this was obvious. Then again, in Loki’s experience, anything of a certain vintage was considered ‘a classic,’ and judging by the graininess of the animation, this program was definitely of that vintage.

Loki cocked his head. “Why is it attaching branches to that dog’s head?”

Setting the remote down next to him, Wong said, “They’re antlers. The Grinch hates Christmas, so he’s going to pretend to be Santa Claus, steal all the presents from the Whos, and ruin it.”

Loki’s brow furrowed further. “What’s the purpose of that?”

Wong looked back at him. “It’s a cartoon, Loki. It doesn’t have a purpose. It’s just supposed to be entertaining.”

“Hm.” Loki bent at the waist, leaned his elbows on the back of the sofa, and propped his chin on a fist.

There was a silence while the program played, and then Wong asked, “Haven’t you wondered what it means when people call Stephen a grinch?”

“I’ve inferred that it means he doesn’t like holidays,” Loki said, his eyes locked on the screen. The bright, frenetic colors were sort of hypnotic.

“It’s someone who specifically hates Christmas,” Wong informed him, gesturing to the screen. He paused, then added, “Though you’re right, Stephen doesn’t really like any holidays.”

“Grinch,” Loki repeated. Even though he’d been on Earth for a number of years now, there was so _much_ to learn about his adopted home. Much of it was ridiculous, like this—a completely useless word, only applicable at one time of year, based on a cartoon that seemed to promote animal cruelty and stealing from children. But he was romantically involved with a human, not to mention related to one by marriage, so he needed to know these things.

Later in the evening, when Stephen and Loki had been in bed reading for awhile, Loki said, “I learned a new English word today.”

There was a pause, and if Loki wasn’t mistaken, it was laden with suspicion. “I thought you were fluent,” Stephen said.

“Oh, I’ve found that it’s such an absurd language that there’s always something new to stumble over,” Loki said. He stuck a bookmark in the book and set it on the bedside table, then stretched out, popping his ankles and toes as he smiled smugly up at Stephen. “I learned that you’re a grinch.”

Rolling his eyes, Stephen said, “Wong’s showing you holiday classics, I guess.”

“Yes, I normally don’t find television all that constructive, but we had a fascinating discussion,” Loki said.

“I bet.”

Loki smirked at Stephen’s tone. “I don’t blame you, you know. From everything I’ve seen, Christmas is a poor substitute for Yule. It’s quite clearly about nothing so much as buying the love of others.”

Stephen closed his book and tossed it over Loki so it landed on the bedside table with a thump. “What’s Yule about?”

“Drinking,” Loki answered. “Like most Asgardian holidays.” This wasn’t really true, but Stephen knew perfectly well what Yule was ‘about.’

Lying down alongside Loki, Stephen said, “So you think I’m a grinch, huh?”

“Yes,” Loki said, smiling slightly.

Sometimes, even though they both knew that what Loki was saying was absolutely, without a doubt correct, Stephen still needed to prove a point. Which was how they ended up in a debate about Stephen’s relative grinchiness; a debate which resulted in Stephen vowing to prove that he wasn’t _that_ bad. Finally, Loki had to shut the whole thing down by rolling on top of him and kissing him.

“This is a distraction because you know I’m going to win,” Stephen said into Loki’s mouth.

“You’re not going to win,” Loki replied. “But is it working?”

In answer, Stephen wrapped his arms around Loki and kissed him back.

And this conversation was, unfortunately, how Loki ended up with the envelope that he was currently holding as he stood in the kitchen at home in New Asgard.

He didn’t want to be holding this envelope. But Yule was in two days, and he knew, as much as it pained him, that what it contained was the perfect gift for Thor. When something this suitable fell into one’s lap, you didn’t chuck it back in the face of the person who’d dropped it there.

The front door opened and the breath of cold air that it let in reached Loki in the kitchen after a moment. Thor and Jane were laughing about something as they shucked off their coats. Boots thunked to the ground. Then there was a silence, then a giggle from Jane and a hushed, but not particularly strident, protestation, “Loki might be here.”

“Loki _is_ here,” he called from the kitchen, and there was an immediate shuffle and rustle of clothing being put back into place, which made him roll his eyes. He was actually sort of well aware that he didn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to checking to make sure you had the house to yourselves before making a move on your significant other, but that wasn’t going to stop him from acting as though he did.

Thor and Jane came into the kitchen far too casually. Jane was holding her sword and Mjølnir was swinging in Thor’s grip. Well, couples who fought together stayed together. Or something like that. “I thought you were staying in New York tonight,” Thor said.

“Stephen had a situation,” Loki said. A primarily astral realm situation, which meant Loki couldn’t be any help. As Jane sat down at the table and set her sword down on top of it, Loki asked, “What were you two doing?”

Thunking Mjølnir down in the corner, Thor went to wash his hands. “Training. We haven’t faced any dangerous foes recently—I don’t want the instincts to get dull.”

“I’m not sure there’s any danger of that,” Loki said dryly. Stephen had once commented that even though he hadn’t expected to have a normal relationship once he’d become a Master of the Mystic Arts, he still hadn’t imagined his partner’s family would have quite so many weapons scattered around the house. Loki had casually said, “You haven’t even seen most of them,” which Stephen hadn’t seemed sure whether he should find amusing or alarming.

“You and Stephen practice magic together, don’t you?” Thor asked.

Fair point. Loki supposed he could practice with more traditional weapons, as well, but he wasn’t concerned about his skills fading quite yet. Neither was Thor, really. He just enjoyed doing it.

Loki curled one corner of the envelope in his hands, watching as Jane settled in to polish her sword, Ravenseye, bequeathed to her when she’d become a Valkyrie. As Thor went to the refrigerator to look for something to eat, Loki said, “I have something for you. For Yule.”

Thor turned around, closing the refrigerator door. He was empty handed, as though Loki getting him something for Yule was so shocking that he’d had to halt everything he was doing. “We agreed we weren’t exchanging Yule gifts this year,” Thor said. There was a note of accusation in his voice. “Money—”

“Yes, I know, money is tight,” Loki said. He curled the corner of the envelope further, then let it catch under his thumbnail. “Did you get me something?” When Thor just stared at him, Loki raised an eyebrow.

“It’s small,” Thor finally admitted.

Loki snorted. “Well then. Here.” He held out the envelope, the corner looking slightly worse for wear, and Thor took it.

“What is it?” Thor held it up to the light, trying to see through it.

Rolling his eyes, Loki said, “For heaven’s sake, just open it. Put me out of my misery.” His eyes flicked to the sword Jane was polishing at the kitchen table, and he added, “I didn’t mean that literally.” When she just smirked at him, he crossed his arms over his chest and looked back to Thor. “It’s time sensitive.”

“Perhaps I’d like to wait until the twenty-first,” Thor said. “I don’t like opening gifts before Yule starts.” When Loki gave him a flat look, Thor grinned and ripped the envelope open. His eyebrows drew together as he peered at the contents. And people said _Loki_ was the dramatic one.

“I hope it’s money,” Jane quipped from her chair. Loki made a face at her.

Thor pulled the contents of the envelope out and squinted at them. “Wayne Holiday Lights Tour,” he read. He stared. Then, he looked at Loki. “What’s this?”

Yes. Exactly. Loki wished he didn’t know. But he did. He _did._ With a hard breath out through his nose, Loki replied, “My understanding is that one boards some sort of communal transport and is then driven around the town of Wayne, New Jersey—and environs, one assumes—and views all the most spectacular holiday lights displays.” Even put that way, it sounded terrible.

Jane got up from the table and hooked a hand into the crook of Thor’s arm as she grabbed one of the tickets. Raising her eyebrows at Loki, she said, “So you get on a bus and drive around and look at Christmas lights. In New Jersey.” When Loki nodded curtly, she snorted. “This doesn’t seem exactly…like you, Loki.”

Putting a hand over his heart, Loki said, “For all you know, I stood in line for hours in the freezing cold to buy those, knowing how much Thor would enjoy it—you _will_ enjoy it, right?” he asked, suddenly realizing he should make sure. Either way was a win—if Thor liked them, then Loki would have been a good brother, and if he _didn’t_ , well, then Loki didn’t have to go on this heinous sounding excursion.

Thor was grinning. “It’s a very thoughtful gift.”

Loki waved a hand and continued, “—As I was saying, I could have waited in the cold for hours, only to get the last four tickets—”

Jane had flipped one of the tickets over. “This says ‘Presented by Z100.’ Isn’t that the top 40s station out of Newark?”

Abruptly, Loki dropped his hand from his heart. He shrugged and admitted, “Stephen won them in a radio contest. He wasn’t going to accept them but I thought Thor would like it. So. Here we are.”

Barely suppressing laughter, Jane asked, “What was the contest?”

“He had to name the number one song on Christmas Day in 1993.” Loki rolled his eyes. “He didn’t even care about the prize, he just wanted the satisfaction of winning.”

A quote, actually. Stephen had been smug, almost ebullient, all day. He was lucky that Loki loved his crooked little smirk so much.

“Which was?” Jane asked.

“‘Hero,’ by Mariah Carey,” Loki replied, wrinkling his nose. “Would you like me to call Stephen and get him to sing it for you?”

Looking intrigued, Jane asked, “Can he hit the high notes?”

“No. He absolutely cannot.”

They didn’t need to know the whole story, which was that Stephen had tuned the radio to Z100, which was playing, as Stephen put it, “Wall to wall Christmas music.”

“You hate Christmas music,” Loki had pointed out.

“Grinches hate Christmas music,” Stephen had said. “So since we’re listening to this, I’m clearly not a grinch.”

At this point, Loki had been very tempted to tell Stephen that whatever was happening here was stupid—mostly because the only person in the universe he knew who was more stubborn than him was Stephen Strange and Loki was definitely going to lose whatever competition this was. Then, a very annoying song that repeated the line ‘all I want for Christmas is you’ ad nauseam had ended and the radio announcer had asked the contest question.

Loki had never seen Stephen make a call so fast. He hadn’t even _listened_ for the prize. But Loki had overheard it. And the Wayne Holiday Lights Tour sounded exactly like something his brother would like.

“A grinch wouldn’t have won that contest,” Stephen had said triumphantly.

Loki had rolled his eyes. “And since you’re not a grinch, that means you’ll come with? The prize was _four_ tickets. It sounds like a delightful family outing to me.”

The way Stephen’s smug smile had frozen had given Loki _some_ satisfaction.

Running a hand through his hair and looking back to Thor, Loki said, “Anyway, it’s tonight. That’s not a problem, is it?” When Thor and Jane both answered in the negative, Loki said, “Stephen will come get us at 6:30. It starts at 7:00.”

“Late night,” Jane said.

That gave Loki pause. He hadn’t even thought about that—he was so used to going back and forth from Norway to New York and the six hour time difference it entailed that he forgot that other people’s internal clocks weren’t as broken as his was. “Is that alright?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “It’s fine. Maybe Stephen can swing us by a Starbucks before we get on the bus, though?”

“I’m sure he’d be happy to do that,” Loki said.

With a grin, Thor clapped Loki on the shoulder. “This will be fun, brother! Like a double date.”

Rolling his eyes and slithering out from beneath Thor’s hand, Loki said, “Oh, yes. I’m sure it will be enchanting.”

* * *

The fact that it took them three tries to find a Starbucks that wasn’t out of chocolate chips felt like an ill portent. Jane said it was fine after the first one, she’d live without them, but Thor had insisted they keep trying. At the third one, she asked in a resigned voice, “And I’ll have it with extra chocolate chips, if you have any?” When she was told that yes, they did, she threw her hands up in the air in victory, startling the barista.

As they handed her drink over, the barista said, “You all look really familiar.”

“I live in the neighborhood,” Stephen said. “The boyfriend’s family is in town for the holidays.”

Loki shot him a look, but the expression in Stephen’s eyes made him soften instantly. No matter how much he hated when Stephen called him his ‘boyfriend,’ he would never tire of the way Stephen gazed at him as he said it—as though the greatest achievement of his life wasn’t his MD or his PhD, his becoming a Master of the Mystic Arts so quickly, then Guardian of the New York Sanctum, his role in protecting the planet, or earning the Sorcerer Supreme title. No, from the expression on his face when he called Loki his boyfriend, you’d think earning the right to say it was the pinnacle of everything.

“Get a room,” Jane whispered as she walked past them to the door. Thor guffawed. Loki didn’t actually think it was a bad idea.

One of Stephen’s portals made short work of the trip to the meeting point for the Wayne Holiday Lights Tour. They stepped through it into…

…A…parking lot? Loki looked around, then grabbed one of the tickets from Stephen. “This can’t be it,” he said.

Stephen took it back and peered at it. “Valley Road, right? By the comics shop and the Dunkin’ Donuts?”

Glancing around again, Loki noted the comics shop and the Dunkin’ Donuts. There was also a UPS Store and a Tae Kwon Do studio. It was a nondescript strip mall, the parking lot mostly empty, except at one end, where Loki thought he could see the name of a grocery store. None of it looked very promising. Even the grocery store. The Dunkin’ Donuts was still open, though. If Loki had known about it, he’d have told Jane to just get her coffee there.

Thor turned in a circle, then pointed, saying triumphantly, “Ah! There, at that table. We’ll inform them of our arrival.”

Down at one end of the sidewalk was a table. There appeared to be someone sitting behind it, though they were hard to see, because next to the table was a large, inflatable Santa Claus which dominated the entire space. As the four of them approached, Loki realized there were also colored lights strung around the legs and the back of the folding chair behind the table. The person sitting there was bundled up in a puffy coat. A hat with a pom-pom on top was pulled down over their forehead and the bottom half of their face was wrapped up in a scarf. All Loki could see was a pair of fogged up glasses.

“Hi,” Stephen said, getting a muffled greeting and a wave in return. He pulled his hands out of the pockets of his black peacoat, the tickets grasped in his fingers. Loki wished he would wear warmer gloves. The cold would hurt his hands. Handing the tickets over, he said to the…person…behind the table, “We’re on the seven o’clock tour.”

A cold wind gusted as the ticket taker flipped through the tickets, checking them. Jane’s teeth chattered and Stephen jammed his hands back into his pockets. Loki moved closer to him, sliding a hand surreptitiously over his back, and Stephen leaned into his side. When the wind blew again, Loki shivered, too.

“The bus will be here in a few minutes!” the ticket taker said, voice still muffled. “There’s a heat lamp on the other side of the bank. It’s out of the wind, too.”

His shivers growing more violent, Loki hurried around the corner, only to find the one heat lamp surrounded by another family. There was a pre-teen girl with her eyes glued to her phone and two younger children, both of whom were demanding to know when they could see the lights. The parents seemed to have given up explaining that they needed to wait. One of the women was staring resignedly at her watch, and the other was telling the older girl that she’d been on her phone enough today and could she please put it away?

Stephen made a face when he saw the children, stopping well out of range of any benefit the heat lamp might offer. Thor, on the other hand, walked right up to the family. The youngest child—a girl, perhaps, though it was difficult to tell with the huge, puffed out coat, hat, and mittens—looked up at him, then turned to one of her mothers and said, “Mom. _Mom_. _Mom, that’s Thor!_ ”

The woman looked at Thor, then Jane, and then Loki and Stephen, before bending over and saying, “Jenny, every man with blond hair and a beard isn’t Thor—”

“That’s _Thor!_ ” Jenny insisted. Turning to him, she asked, “Did you fly here with your hammer?”

Looking at Thor, the woman said, “I’m really sorry, she has this thing for Thor right now—”

Jenny pointed and said, “And _that’s_ Loki!” Her mother looked mortified. Her other mother just looked tired.

With a smile that was both apologetic and charming, Loki said, “We get that all the time, actually. Not to worry.” The woman looked relieved that they weren’t annoyed. Well, Stephen was probably annoyed. Stephen wasn’t good with children, nor did he like them. But Loki enjoyed them—and the fact that the girl knew who he was endeared her to him. When she stared at him, still looking convinced, he caught her eye. Green magic shimmered over his fingers before he winked, and then raised a finger to his lips.

Her face lit up.

Jane blew at her coffee, her hands wrapped around the cup. It made Loki wish he’d gotten something, just for the warmth. “You’re coming over for Yule, right, Stephen?” Jane asked. “I need reinforcements.”

“Oh yeah, right,” Stephen said. “Last year was when you all jumped in the fjord at midnight, right?”

Loki stuck his hands in his pockets and looked up at the sky, which was an ugly orangey-gray with low, scudding clouds. Better than watching Jane as she looked at him pointedly and said, “My husband and brother-in-law kept drinking and egging each other on about it, and when I told them I was going to _supervise_ , they threw me in, too.”

“To be fair, you’d also been drinking,” Loki said.

“Not nearly enough.”

With a snort, Stephen said, “So, what, I need to be there to get thrown in the fjord too?”

“Oh, yes, didn’t I mention—the Cloak can’t come to Yule,” Loki said, shooting him a grin. “No particular reason. Certainly nothing related to this conversation.”

Jane laughed and sipped at her drink. She’d been mad after they’d chucked her in the water, but she’d gotten the last laugh, since Thor and Loki had both had terrible hangovers the next day. “Just keep that sling ring handy.”

Jamming his hands further into his pockets and shivering, Stephen said, “You’re not actually doing that again, are you?”

“It’s a bracing way to begin a new year,” Loki said. To be quite honest, the idea of jumping into the black, cold, frigid water again was one of the worst things he could think of. But the expressions on Jane’s and Stephen’s faces amused him. Also, it had to be said, he was currently sober, and Sober Loki, while not particularly sensible, was at least more sensible than Drunk Loki.

Jane glanced over her shoulder at Thor, who was entertaining the children. Even the pre-teen girl had put her phone away. There was a soft, glowing look on Jane’s face and Loki felt a weird sort of reflected pride, or affection—he wasn’t sure how to define it. He just knew that it made him happy to see how much Jane loved Thor, because Thor deserved that.

Watching Thor with the children, it occurred to Loki that Thor and Jane would probably have children of their own one day. On these sorts of outings, Thor and Jane would be the exhausted parents and Loki would be the one entertaining his nephews or nieces. His eyes flicked towards Stephen. If Thor and Jane had children now, or within the next few years, and presuming they aged at an Asgardian rate, Stephen would never see them out of diapers.

Loki swallowed hard and shoved the thought aside. Depressing. Far too depressing. He wasn’t thrilled to be here, but he didn’t need to think about _that_.

“When is this bus going to get here?” Stephen muttered, shivering.

Tugging her hat down over her hair, Jane said, “It could be worse.”

“Yeah, it could be fifteen degrees colder,” Stephen said.

“That’s the spirit, Stephen!” Thor said suddenly, returning and clapping him on the shoulder. Stephen’s knees buckled and Loki caught his arm before they actually hit the asphalt. Thor looked chagrined. “Sorry.”

“Nope, don’t worry about it,” Stephen said, a sardonic smile pulling at his mouth. “That’s what I get for being the only one in the family without superhuman strength.”

Patting his shoulder more gently, Thor said, “Well, that’s hardly something you can help.”

“Nice of you to say.”

Jane shot a crooked smile at Stephen, then silently offered her coffee to Thor. Not that he needed it. He was possibly more excited than the children he’d just been entertaining, bouncing from one foot to the other, impatiently looking at his phone to check the time. Loki was tempted to take it from him. His constant checking certainly wasn’t making the time go faster.

As they waited, several other groups wandered up; a few more with children, a young couple who kept gazing into each other’s eyes and kissing, and a group of women loudly proclaiming how nice it was to get away from their kids for a night. Loki eyed all of them and tried to decide which group would be the least annoying to sit near on the bus.

Seven o’clock came and went. The bus did not appear. Stephen’s expression, not particularly happy to begin with, became less so, and the amusement that Loki had derived from making him come along on this excursion faded a bit. When he’d envisioned this, he hadn’t thought there would be so much standing around in the cold. He’d assumed there’d be a warm building to wait in—perhaps something seasonal, with a roaring fire and some artfully strung white lights. In his worst nightmares, he hadn’t thought they’d be standing in a parking lot with a giant, inflatable Santa Claus for company.

But finally, from the street that went by the strip mall, came a squeal of breaks. There was a loud, metal clunk as a bright yellow bus turned into the parking lot, running over the curb. As it pulled up, the assembled crowd let out a cheer. Loki narrowed his eyes at the bus as it pulled up. It said Wayne Public Schools on the side.

This tour was on a _school bus?_

Stephen looked like he wanted to be the first one on, and Loki couldn’t blame him. Presumably the bus was warm. But Thor, ever the hero and gentleman, allowed everyone else to board first. At least it meant they’d be able to choose who to sit near and who to avoid.

Unfortunately, they ended up between the women who were now exclaiming, “Wine o’clock after this!” and the couple who were…oh Norns, making out now. Loki rolled his eyes. Honestly. He understood not being able to keep your hands off your significant other, but there was a time and a place, and this was neither.

The seats weren’t very big, either. It was a tight squeeze with Loki and Stephen on one bench. Jane and Thor took the seat in front of them, Thor by the window and Jane perching awkwardly on the edge of the seat, even though Thor was clearly doing his best to give her space.

Loki hadn’t actually asked if Stephen wanted the window, which he now felt guilty about. “Do you want to switch?” he asked.

Leaning his head back against the seat, Stephen worried at the buttons on his coat, though he didn’t undo them. It was unclear to Loki if this was because he was still cold, or because his hands were now paining him too much to summon the dexterity required. Loki chewed the inside of his cheek, debating whether or not to ask. One of the few things that could make Stephen snap at Loki was if he perceived that Loki was pitying him for his handicap. In a way, it was a bit of a relief—Stephen was so good and patient, so decent, so willing to put up with all of Loki’s…challenging…behavior. The fact that he was unreasonable about at least this one thing made Loki feel a bit less bad about all of the things that he was unreasonable about.

Then again, Loki didn’t want him to be uncomfortable. “Are you warm?” Loki asked. Hot air was blasting inside the bus as everyone got settled. The heat must have been turned up as high as it would go to offset the open door…and the fact that they’d all been standing outside for twenty extra minutes.

Stephen’s finger caught on a button shakily, clearly trying to unhook it, before it slipped out of his grasp. An irritated hiss of air escaped through his teeth but he didn’t answer. Pressing his lips together, Loki reached over and undid the top button. When Stephen batted his hands away, Loki kept at it, but then Stephen said in a low voice, a note of warning in it, “Loki.”

Loki stopped, giving him a frustrated look. “Don’t be stubborn,” he said, recognizing the rich irony of saying this to someone else. But Stephen’s expression didn’t change, so Loki folded his arms over his chest and looked out the window.

The bus door shut and a chipper young man jogged on, waving to all of them. He grabbed the PA system at the front of the bus, which squealed loudly. Everyone winced. “Sorry for the late start, folks! Don’t worry, we’ll still be making all the stops—we’re not going to be cutting anything short!”

“Oh, thank god,” Stephen muttered. “We wouldn’t want that.”

Loki caught his eye and smiled slightly. After a second, Stephen’s expression softened, and he scooted closer to Loki.

“I’m Parker,” the man said. “Nice to meet all of you! Who’s ready to see some holiday magic?!” The response was muted. One might even say ‘unenthused.’ Parker pulled a disappointed face. “C’mon, we can do better than that. Who’s ready for some _holiday magic?!_ ”

At this point, Loki decided it was probably best to tune out.

Leaning closer to Stephen, Loki tried again, asking, “Are you warm?”

Smiling wryly, Stephen replied, “Yeah.” He held his hands out briefly, helplessly, the tremor worse than usual, and Loki unbuttoned his coat for him, his heart aching a little. If it made Stephen seem a bit closer to Loki’s level to get prickly about his hands, it also filled Loki with a light that was equal parts sweetness and pain when he eased off and allowed Loki to help him.

Stephen’s fingers brushed over Loki’s as he undid the last button and Loki looked up at him, meeting his eyes. Suddenly, the couple who was making out seemed far more sympathetic. The way that little smile tugged at Stephen’s lips made it a challenge not to kiss them. Loki liked the way Stephen sometimes couldn’t seem to contain his smile when they kissed.

He might have forgotten himself, but then Parker’s voice cut through the moment: “And it looks like we have someone _special_ on board tonight!”

Freezing, Loki whipped his head to face the front of the bus. What? When he’d booked this tour, names hadn’t been required. No one knew who they were. Well, except Jenny. And actually one of the wine o’clock women kept looking at him and giggling. She might have cottoned on. Thor and Jane really didn’t care about being recognized—and Jane, thanks to her stint as the Mighty Thor a number of years previously, was recognized almost as much as Thor himself was. Stephen didn’t care one way or another but it was a bit of a moot point, as he was rarely recognized anyway. Loki, of course, despised it. Especially in New York. It had been more than twenty years and Earth may have mostly forgiven him…but it didn’t mean it had forgotten.

But Parker was grinning at a point beyond Loki’s head, so Loki swiveled to look. One of the families—not Jenny’s family—was beaming. “Happy birthday, Eddie!” There was a boy, maybe about ten, grinning widely. Parker made a motion with his hand as though he was holding a wand and tapping it against the seat in front of him. “Are you all ready to sing?”

“For heaven’s sake,” Loki muttered.

Stephen glanced at Loki, looking amused and like he’d just won some kind of victory. Rather a Pyrrhic victory, if you asked Loki. _Stephen_ was the one who was now singing happy birthday to a ten year old as their school bus pulled out of the parking lot. The lot of them were. Obviously Thor’s voice rose above everyone else’s. It was mortifying.

“Wooo! Yeah!” Parker said, clapping when the song was finished. “Happy birthday, bud!”

This was so much worse than Loki had imagined.

“Okay, folks. Welcome to the Wayne Holiday Lights Tour!” Parker enthused. “I’m _super_ happy to welcome you on board our holiday express. Who’s here for the first time?”

Hands went up, including Thor’s and Jane’s. Stephen’s and Loki’s did not. Parker looked around approvingly. “Okay, okay, cool, we’ve got some newcomers, we’ve got some old pros—” He pointed with his entire arm. “I see you, birthday boy, y’all do this every year, right?”

“Where is this guy from?” Stephen murmured. Loki snickered and Stephen caught his eye.

Parker’s grin looked painful. Loki was quite sure his own mouth wouldn’t stretch that wide. “Well, for all our first timers, we’re going to spend the next forty-five minutes seeing some truly incredible holiday lights displays right here in Wayne. And after that, I hope you’re all hungry, because we’ve got hot chocolate and cookies!”

Stephen’s mouth twitched. “Maybe they could have given us the hot chocolate when we were standing around waiting for the bus to show up.”

Loki snorted. Jane’s head poked over the back of the seat and she gave him a look that he couldn’t quite read. Well, actually, he could. It was a warning look. Loki ignored it.

The bus pulled onto a residential street. Many of the houses were strung with lights and some of them had additional decorations, but apparently they were headed for something more spectacular, because the bus didn’t stop or slow. Parker was still talking but Loki was doing his damndest to not listen. Still, he couldn’t help catching some of it—the tour had been going on for forty years in some form or another; it had started as an informal thing at Fountains of Wayne, blah blah blah.

“Fountains of Wayne?” Jane said. “Like the band?”

“Yeah, like the band.” Stephen gave her a disbelieving look. “They named themselves after a garden center off of Route 46. You lived in New York, how did you not know this?”

With a smirk, she said, “Stephen, no one knows as much about music as you.”

There had been a pause in Parker’s monologue, which apparently allowed him to overhear this exchange. “Hey, hey—do we have some Z100 listeners in the house?”

The bus’s engine roared as it chugged up a hill, and into this silence, Stephen said, “Uh…yes?”

Parker sang the jingle, which Loki had unfortunately become intimately familiar with due to Stephen’s insistence that they listen to the station nonstop. “Did y’all win the contest?”

Both Thor and Jane turned around to look at Stephen, and Loki arched an eyebrow at him. Reluctantly, Stephen answered, “…Yeah.”

There was a considering look on Parker’s face, a look that Loki recognized very well, since it was the way people looked at him, usually. It was a look that said, _I’m pretty sure I know you, but where from?_ Thus far, Loki wouldn’t have characterized Parker’s demeanor as ‘professional,’ but perhaps he could find it within himself and not announce to the whole bus that Stephen looked very familiar.

Luckily, at that moment, the bus slowed, approaching its first stop. “And here we are!” Parker announced. The bus crawled along the street. Loki looked out the window. He blinked. And then his brow furrowed. What the hel was he looking at?

It was…a house. He thought. The lawn was covered entirely in inflatable Christmas decorations: Santa Clauses, reindeer, candy canes, a large…doghouse? With a white dog inside and a yellow bird on top. Something that looked a bit like a skeleton in a Santa Claus hat, which Loki didn’t quite understand—weren’t skeletons for Halloween? There was a Grinch, too, which towered above everything else. Next to the Grinch was an inflatable religious scene. One of the donkeys hadn’t fully filled with air.

“Oh my god,” Stephen breathed. “This is why I’d never move to the suburbs.”

“This is one of my favorites,” Parker said. “Look at that Jack Skellington! It’s like the Grinch and him are facing off!”

Loki looked at him, then looked back out the window. “Jane,” he hissed. “Which one is Jack Skellington?” As soon as he said it, he heard it. Ah. Well. He still didn’t understand what a skeleton had to do with Christmas.

Everyone sitting on the opposite side of the bus crowded to look out the windows. Thor looked absolutely delighted. Loki wondered how anyone with taste could look at this eyesore for more than five seconds.

“How long are we going to sit here, do you think?” Stephen asked quietly. “Blow-up Baby Jesus…really the reason for the season.” Loki laughed, and Stephen slid a hand along his leg—definitely more physical affection than he normally would have allowed in public, but the bus was dark, and Loki was starting to feel guilty about dragging Stephen to this.

The bus moved on. If the first house had been an eyesore, the second was a monstrosity. There were even more inflatable lawn ornaments, as well as plastic ones. There were more lights strung over the second house, and they were blinking, though not in time with each other. “This one’s one of my favorites,” Parker informed them.

Then it was on to the next one. Also one of Parker’s favorites. Each house was marginally better decorated than the next, though that wasn’t saying very much—sort of like acknowledging that some winter days in Norway were brighter than others as December passed into January.

The fourth and fifth houses had lights that blinked in time with music, some unpleasant version of a Christmas song—one that Loki normally enjoyed—performed on a wailing electric guitar. It didn’t improve the song, and having to hear it twice didn’t help, either. The light choreography was suspiciously similar, as well. Loki thought one house might have copied the other. He wondered if they’d had an altercation about it, then decided it might be worth his time to come around this neighborhood and mention something to one of them, just to see if he couldn’t start something.

The sixth house had a fenced in area with hay bales, which Parker informed them, after mentioning that it was one of his favorites, was normally occupied by reindeer. “Guess they’re helping Santa tonight, though!” he said.

Loki checked his phone. There were still fifteen minutes left of this.

As the bus pulled up to the seventh house, Stephen said, “Let me guess…this is one of his favorites.”

“This is one of my favorites!” Parker chirped.

“On a scale of one to ten, how tasteless do you think this one is going to be?” Loki murmured. He held his hand in front of Stephen’s eyes. “You can’t look.”

“I need a baseline,” Stephen said.

“The first one was a nine,” Loki said.

Chuckling, Stephen said, “I can’t decide what makes me sadder—that you _can_ imagine something worse than that, or that you can’t imagine something _much_ worse.”

“Just trying to keep the mystery alive in this relationship.” Loki smiled slightly.

“Hmm…this one’s going to be a seven.”

At this, Jane turned around and glared at them. “Can you two stop being such grinches?” she demanded in a low voice. Thor glanced over his shoulder and the sharp smile fell off Loki’s face. When he glanced at Stephen, he also looked chagrined. As horrid as the tour was…Jane had a point. The whole idea had been to do something that Thor would enjoy. Sitting behind him poking fun at every single stop on the tour was probably _not_ exactly in that spirit.

The tour deserved to be mocked. Obviously. But perhaps it was best to store the most ridiculous parts away in his memory and bring them up later, once he was alone with Stephen. Anyway, Stephen would remember all of it. Unless he tried to repress the memory of the entire tour. Honestly, Loki wouldn’t have blamed him.

Loki removed his hand from Stephen’s eyes and looked out the window at the next house.

To his surprise, it was actually…not that bad. The lights were white and twinkling, bedecking the fence that ran along the edge of the yard. Lights hung from the trees too, as well as glowing baubles. There was a sleigh and nine fake reindeer on the roof, also lit with white lights.

The other passengers on the bus oohed and aahed. Loki cocked his head, glanced at Thor out of the corner of his eye, and then said, “It’s pretty.”

Squinting, Thor said, “It seems as though it would have been quite the feat to place the sleigh on the roof.”

“Perhaps they used magic,” Loki said.

Jane poked her head over the seat again and said, “I think that’s the closest we’re ever going to get to hearing Loki say something is a Christmas miracle.”

“Well, I only celebrate Christmas to make you happy, Jane, so that makes sense, doesn’t it?” Loki asked, raising an eyebrow. She smirked at him.

As they sat there watching, the lead reindeer’s nose glowed red. “It’s Rudolph!” several of the children on the bus exclaimed. Loki smiled and leaned back in his seat so Stephen could see more easily. Not that he thought Stephen really wanted to see this, since this tour was ridiculous, but…just in case.

Finally, the bus pulled away. Parker said regretfully, “And that’s our last stop, folks—” There were disappointed groans from scattered points on the bus. “—but I hope you’re ready for some tasty treats! In just a few minutes we’ll be visiting our Winter Wonderland, where we’ve got complimentary hot chocolate and cookies for you!”

They wound through residential streets until finally pulling out onto a larger road, and from there, the tour made its way back to the strip mall where they’d begun the tour. Instead of dropping them off where they’d been waiting, though, it went around the back of the building. Loki’s eyes narrowed. There was nothing particularly winter wonderland-y about the dumpsters lining the back of the strip mall.

The bus let them off at the end of the parking lot. Everyone trooped off, but when Loki and Stephen got to the door, Parker asked, “Has anyone ever told you you look _just_ like Doctor Strange? You know, the Bleecker Street Wizard?” He laughed. “If you put on the cape, I would have thought you were him!”

“Yeah, you know, I’ve been told that before,” Stephen said.

With a grin, Parker said, “You should dress up as him for Halloween!” He slapped Stephen on the back, “Hey, thanks for coming, man. Come back next year!”

The idea nauseated Loki. Come back next year? Sit on this bus and look at these homes which clearly were decorated by amateurs, people who simply strung up some lights and put out decorations for love of the holiday?

Put like that, it…didn’t seem so terrible.

But Loki definitely had no intention of putting himself through this again in a year’s time.

The Winter Wonderland was an area of the parking lot sectioned off by sawhorses. The sawhorses had been given some festive flair in the form of wreaths on either end and lights wrapped around them. It did nothing to disguise what they were. A couple tables were set up within this demarcated area. On one was a basket with small packets of cookies—Famous Amos, the bag said—and on the other sat two urns and a stack of styrofoam cups.

The four of them took a packet of cookies, one each, since there was a handwritten sign admonishing them not to take any more than that, and then filled their styrofoam cups with hot chocolate.

Loki ripped open the bag of cookies and popped one in his mouth. It was hard and not very good, the sort of thing that one might buy out of desperation for something sweet. The hot chocolate was watery.

“This was wonderful,” Thor announced, dunking a cookie in his hot chocolate.

Raising a doubtful eyebrow, Loki asked, “Really?”

“Yes!” Thor really _did_ look happy. “I enjoyed it. Didn’t you?”

Was this a serious question? Had Thor not heard Loki and Stephen incessantly mocking the entire thing? Was he drinking the same hot chocolate that Loki was right now? Nothing about this was ‘wonderful.’

But Loki smiled and said, “Yes.”

It wasn’t a _complete_ lie. If it had made his brother happy, then yes. Loki had enjoyed it.

Even if he had no intention of finishing either the cookies or the hot chocolate.

He was casting his gaze around for a garbage can to toss everything away when suddenly, something began falling from the sky. Loki stopped and looked up into the ugly, low clouds, but all he could see now were fluffy white snowflakes. The children began shrieking with joy and when Loki looked over at Thor, his brother grinned. Jane slipped a hand into Thor’s, and then Thor looked down at her, a soppy, idiotic look on his face. He put his arms around her and the two of them kissed, snow settling in their hair.

Draining the rest of his hot chocolate, Stephen said, “It’s kind of magical with the snow.”

“A bit,” Loki conceded. The two of them met each other’s eyes, Stephen smiling wryly, Loki knowing that the look on his own face was probably just as stupid as Thor’s had been as he’d gazed at Jane. Family resemblance, he supposed.

Stephen hooked both his hands into the crook of Loki’s arm, pulling him close, and the two of them watched the snow fall.

Later, at home in New Asgard, when they’d crawled into Loki’s bed and turned the lights off, Loki said, “I’m not sure I’ll ever enjoy Christmas all that much.”

Stephen yawned. “It’s not your holiday. Nothing wrong with that. It _is_ my holiday and I don’t like it.”

“Well, we’ve established that you’re a grinch.”

“Yeah, yeah. Shitty childhood club.”

Smiling in the dark, Loki said, “You’re not going to argue with me and try to prove otherwise?”

With a snort, Stephen replied, “You saw the way Jane looked at us on that bus. I think it’s time I owned up…I’m a grade A grinch.”

Loki wrapped his arms around Stephen from behind and buried his face in his hair, breathing deeply. “Perhaps I’m a bit of a grinch, too,” he admitted.

Chuckling, Stephen squirmed backwards, cuddling closer to Loki. “Are you saying we can be grinches together?”

“Mm. Yes. ‘Together’ sounds like the key word there.”

Catching one of Loki’s hands in his, Stephen raised it to his lips and kissed Loki’s knuckles softly. “If you’re going to be a grinch, you can’t say stuff like that.”

“Sentimental stuff, you mean?”

“Uh huh.”

“You’re right. I’ll swear off it.”

Stephen’s breath puffed across the back of Loki’s hand in a quiet laugh. “Okay. You called my bluff.” His lips brushed Loki’s hand again.

Splaying his other hand across Stephen’s chest, Loki kissed a line up the back of his neck into his hair. “I wasn’t trying to. I meant it. No more sentimentality.”

With another laugh, Stephen rolled over. His bare arms slid around Loki and Loki ran his hands over his biceps, then across his shoulders. Loki didn’t understand how he could sleep in nothing but his underwear even in the winter, but it was certainly nothing to complain about. “I thought you might be kind of getting into the tour by the end, there,” Stephen said. “The last house was okay.”

Loki rolled his eyes, then realized Stephen couldn’t see him. He supposed he should say something to make his scorn for this idea plain. Because he hadn’t been ‘getting into it.’ At all. So the last house on the tour couldn’t be described as easily with the word ‘eyesore.’ That didn’t make it nice.

But he didn’t say any of that. Instead, put an arm across Stephen’s midsection, tucking his hand under his ribs. “It was okay,” he agreed. There was a silence. Then, Loki said casually, “I suppose if it’s been going on for forty years, they’ll probably do it again next year.”

“Probably.”

Loki thought about it. Christmas wasn’t his thing. But Yule was close enough to the day. And was going on a holiday lights tour really any worse of a tradition than jumping in the fjord at midnight? They hadn’t even thought to prepare a hot drink to return to when they’d done the latter.

Clearing his throat, Loki said, “Perhaps if the radio station is running the same contest, you could win tickets again.”

Stephen didn’t answer for a second. Then, Loki felt Stephen’s hand on his arm. “Maybe. Or we could just buy the tickets.”

“I suppose that’s also a possibility,” Loki said, as though he didn’t really care very much.

Another silence. Then, Stephen rolled over onto his side. His arm went around Loki’s back, holding him tightly. “No more sentimentality, huh?” Stephen asked.

Loki smiled. “None at all,” he replied. And then, because he wasn’t sentimental, and he certainly didn’t want to talk about it, he pulled Stephen closer and kissed him. So perhaps Christmas _wasn’t_ his holiday. But maybe, just maybe, there was something nice about finding new traditions with the people you loved.


End file.
